


Corrupted, Corrosive

by kiiouex



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 16:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4712321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You don't know your own name?" He asks and he sounds heartbroken on your behalf. You will never let a single bad thing befall this child.</p>
<p>Or, the Centipeetle is the first gem to be fixed once Steven figures out how, but she has been broken so long she is unsure of many things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Corrupted, Corrosive

**Author's Note:**

> I just really want the Centipeetle to come back as a gem and be Steven's best friend okay

You wake to whispers and a sense of heavy tension. You feel like you’ve been asleep for a long time, but you don't know why. Every thought in your head feels cracked, scattered, and you will need to pick up all the little pieces inside your head before you can put your own history together again.

You open your eyes. There's a boy in front of you and it is three heartbeats before you recognise him, but you do and you shout, "Steven!" and throw your arms around him. You have shards of memories, flashes of him sharing food and jokes, and above all else you recall the overwhelming love he gave to you. You squeeze him tight and he hugs you back and for a moment you don't know why it feels so miraculous.

"Diopside," someone says, and something in you has been trained to listen when you hear a commanding tone like that, some old conditioning that sets your shoulders square and has you immediately attentive. You look past Steven, you see three gems and you recognise them, another flash from your past. They were huge and violent and terrifying and even if they don't seem as large as they used to, you aren't about to give them another chance to kill you, aren't about to let them near Steven.

You launch yourself backward with him still in your arms, hissing a furious warning for them not to follow. Steven is wailing something at you and you curl an arm over him defensively, while the other three all shriek in outrage and lunge after you.

They're going to put you back to sleep, you're sure, they're going to catch you and break you and trap you and split your mind apart again, so you turn and sprint, Steven safe in your arms. If you can't get away at least you think you'll be able to fend them off for a while, buy him some time to escape them. He's small though, weak, might not fare well on his own. He probably needs your protection, needs you to escape the others and help him. All the peace and light in him needs to be saved. You run faster.

The gems fall away behind you as you rush down some unfamiliar beach. You have no idea where you are, but the saltwater wrinkles your nose, reminds you of a dozen different things you can't place, and you have no heading aside from 'away'. Steven's hitting you on the arm and you can't guess why, don't have time to find out.

You run for as long as your new legs can carry you and when they finally start to shake, you stop. The place you woke up in and the city you passed are so distant you can't even see them, and you get a little safety from that, from the strange new crags and rougher sand on your new stretch of coastline. No doubt the other gems are still in pursuit, but you think you've earned a moment's break. Long enough to set Steven down and disentangle his flailing hands from your arm. "Are you alright?" you ask immediately, hoping you weren't holding him too tight.

"I'm okay," he says, looking dizzy and tired even though you were the one running. "But, we have to go back."

"What?" Trapped. Broken. Splintered. "No."

"Those other gems aren't your enemy! I know Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl hurt you when you were little but you're not like that anymore, they won't hurt you now!"

You stare. There are too many things you don't understand, and the one coherent thought you were clinging to, Protect Steven, is turning out wrong. You try to remember the last time you saw those gems with more clarity, and the burn of fear and hatred you felt overshadows everything else. But Steven seems to know. "What do you mean, 'when I was little'?"

He stares at you with a level of compassion you have never seen before, and slowly sits down on the sand. He pats the bit of beach to his left, an invitation, and you sink down beside him. "What's your name?"

You don't know. "They called me Diopside," you tell him. It’s the best answer you've got.

"You don't know your own name?" He asks and he sounds heartbroken on your behalf. You will never let a single bad thing befall this child.

But, with his encouragement, you consider. Your head is a mess that you don't want to upset, but you try and sift through the pieces carefully. 'Diopside ' brings you images first, one hundred gems in your same shade of green, echoes of companionship and belonging and the comfort of being where you were supposed to be. But you dig deeper, and you find sound. A dozen different voices shouting it in command, a handful of softer tones, speaking it kindly. One scream, frightened and desperate. All of those, you know, were directed at you. "I think it is my name," you say. It doesn't really matter to you, but your revelation makes Steven beam and you think that if it’s important to him it should be important to you, too.

"Diopside," he repeats brightly. "Okay! It’s a cool name, and your gem is a really nice shade of green."

"Thank you," you say, rubbing your knuckles over your gem. It is tucked into your right eye socket nicely, and you find yourself proud of how bright and pretty it is in a way you haven't before. In the distance, you can see three figures running along the coast, but your legs are recovering well and you are not worried.

"So… Well, you seem like you don't remember a lot of stuff?" he asks. You nod your confirmation, and he continues hesitantly. "Something went wrong with your gem, and it got... corrupted? And you were a big monster, so the crystal gems fought you, and then you were a little monster, and that's when we were friends! We hung out and ate chips and had fun! And... then there was a cave in, and you got crushed. ... Do you remember any of this?"

You remember parts, slivers of being low to the ground and fighting seagulls. Being very small. Being crushed. You're not sure you remember being big. You do not know that you were ever a monster.

You tell Steven all this and he looks so concerned for your well-being. His expression doesn't trigger any memories that aren't of him.

"Well," he says slowly, "I think you're just going to have to trust me for a while, so you can see that Garnet and Amethyst and Pearl aren't scary. And, when they see that you're not going to hurt me, they won't try to hurt you! And we can all be friends. So, can you trust me?"

It's not a question for you. His love is yours and you will cherish him to the end. So you nod, and even while your body thrums to move as the three gems approach, you hold yourself still. Standing in front of Steven is only natural, because they have weapons drawn and what if they hurt him, will you be able to fight them all? There is a hiss in your throat ready to try and threaten, but Steven steps forwards to stand beside you, puts his little pink hand in yours, and the sound dies in your throat. He wants peace. You think you remember someone else who wanted peace, but you have never had it, never seen it.

You squeeze Steven's hand, and you wait.

The other three skid to a stop in the sand, and every part of you is nervous tension, muscles screaming with the want to move, and it should be fight or flight, stillness is agony. Steven yells, "Hi!" and "I'm okay!" and "Don't hurt her! She's my friend!" and you are a warrior, you think you remember that, or you can guess from your reactions. It's not going to work, how could it work, they have their weapons out and you should get yours too, you are defenceless in front of them and you can tell they're sizing you up the same way you're looking at them. Even if your head doesn't remember combat, your body does, and you find yourself sinking into a fighting stance, fingers twitching in readiness for when you need to grab your weapon.

Steven's hand pulls on yours and you realise he's leading you forward, closing that gap between you and them, and you dig your heels into the sand as best as you can. They are violence and unthinking pain, they hurt you when you were trying to protect Steven, they don’t have his interests at heart like you do, it’s wrong that he’s mistaking them for his allies.

The Garnet raises her hands, and the gauntlets disappear. "Diopside," she says for the second time, and her tone is still strong but the command, the unspoken demand for you to yield, is absent. "We are not your enemy."

It is hard to believe, and you grip Steven's hand tighter, try to stop him from getting closer to them.

The Garnet looks at her comrades, tells them, "Put your weapons away. She's not dangerous, just scared."

You want to laugh, bitter and acrid, you want to spit at their feet because you know they've killed you at least twice now, done something to stop you regenerating, and you can see the hesitance heavy on the Amethyst and the Peal. They want to fight you. You want to fight them. Everyone else is in the way and you've done this before, you think you can hold your own, your body knows what you don't and you're almost shaking with the need to fight.

The other gems shed their weapons. You are forced to relax your stance, as courtesy to Steven and Garnet, but the mantra in your head screaming ‘strike, spit, fight' does not quiet down.

"You have been broken for a long time," Garnet tells you, and she doesn't sound like lying, she doesn't sound kind enough to be sparing you from anything. "Through the power of Steven and the Rose Quartz gem, you have been restored. You are the first. You will have to forgive us, for not knowing how to handle you."

Her voice is smooth, and Steven's hand is warm and damp in your own. You squeeze it tightly, and relax in slow inches, letting the tension leak out of you while across the sand the other three are doing the same. Negotiation, you think distantly. You’ve been to negotiations before. You think this one is going better than the ones in your memory. "Rose's tears and my spit fixed you," Steven tells you, bright and disgusting, sticking out his tongue to show you his saliva.

You can't help but laugh, and then you see the shoulders of Pearl slope down, more trusting, and they close the gap, reach down to Steven, try to pull him away but he clings close to you and you love him so much. You lift him up instead, hold him against your chest and they're nervous but they're allowing it. Garnet is nodding and you peg her as their leader. "So," you say slowly, and you can feel close gazes on you, trying to pick apart what is happening in your mind. You wish you were able to help them with that. "Some time has passed. And I spent some of it as a monster."

"What's the last thing you remember?" Pearl asks you, and she's anxious, but curious, and you consider.

"Steven," you say.

Garnet chuckles, asks, "We mean before that. Back when you were a gem."

You don't know, and you tell them so. The walk back to their base is long and they spend it trying to lure memories out of you, describing battles and ships and drills, a hundred gems who you get a bare flicker of recognition for, a huge pink woman, a diamond queen. They are trying to put you back together, and they let you keep Steven cradled against you, and Amethyst slaps you on your rump and tells you that you're going to be fine, and you almost believe them.

You stay with them. You were only lingering for lack of anywhere else to be - because where is your home, in the stars? It’s a dim memory, and unreachably distant - but then you learn that they take Steven on missions and no, they absolutely cannot, he is small and has no weapon and his spit isn't even acidic. It heals, it is possibly the exact opposite of acid. He is absolutely not going on missions without you there to protect him.

They do not trust you in the field, but they do trust you with Steven, and you spent your time curled tight around him, wary and furious and constantly, constantly dragging him out of harm's way. You are adamant that you will never let a single scratch befall him.

The crystal gems are getting ready to fix the rest of the broken stones they keep in the heart of their temple, making plans for what they will do with a hundred others as confused and cracked as you. You learn that you are their prototype, and you learn that no matter how much fun Steven thinks it might be, the other three do not want to share their home with a hundred others, and you learn that as far as they are concerned you are a success and that sparks a flame in your heart that you shelter carefully.

And while they have to teach you not to hiss at anyone who gets near Steven, and they have to teach you not to spit in the house, you are welcomed. Steven has a friend who braids your hair, and Steven has a lion that reminds you of someone so keenly you think for a moment you could grasp the memory in both hands, and Steven has a smile that seems to be just for you, warm and open and _loving_ , and you think that you will have enough time to put your head together with him by your side.


End file.
